Pals
by HeldAtRansom
Summary: It's a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for Ruby, seemingly another hapless Gothamite forgotten by the system, but for the Joker, his late-night escape from Arkham has him unknowingly stumbling across just the kind of person he needs in a Gotham under the Dent Act. He's just got to convince her that she needs him first. [Set approx. a year after TDK.]
1. un coup du sort

From what I've learned so far in my twenty-four years of being alive, life can be either good for people (see: the rich à la Bruce Wayne, criminals bribing law enforcement, law enforcement accepting those bribes, babies) or it's shit (see: Mike Engel, poor criminals, uncorrupt police, babysitters, chefs who don't get to taste their own food, my neighbors, and me).

I know this, because, you see, I'm a child of a broken home. Scratch that, I'm a child of a home that was ransacked, wrecked, burned, bulldozed—you name it. Figuratively and somewhat literally. Guess you can't expect anything less when your mom marries and procreates with the arms dealer of then-crimelord Luigi Maroni, father of the most recent organized crime head, Salvatore.

Life was good for us, for a while. I was doing well in a good school, we lived in a relatively well-off neighborhood, we ate well and plenty, Mom and Dad went out on expensive dates—those were the nights I loved, when I'd be allowed to help Mom pick out an outfit, check her hair and makeup for her, fasten her necklace for her when she couldn't rea—I digress. In short: money was present and flowing. Everyone was happy.

Or, rather, _we_ were happy. My dad's boss and colleagues? Not so much.

Unbeknownst to Mom, Dad had started a little project of his own on the side: rather than just selling weapons he imported from elsewhere, he was now in the habit of building them, sourcing the individual parts from the cheapest dealers he could find and putting them together like a dangerous Happy Meal toy.

Somewhere, in the deep recesses of my mind, I knew this. Vague memories of sitting on his 'office' floor (a converted garage/basement at best), watching him draw blueprints and testing out the odd mechanism here and there, pop up at the forefront of my mind every so often, like an unwanted reminder of updating your computer's operating system. Given that I was only nine at the time, I cut myself some slack.

How was I to know Dad wasn't selling these only to the Italians? Yeah, for whatever reason, he'd decided on going _public_ , to hell with exclusivity and personal bonds, meaning that anyone, literally anyone who knew where to find him, was able to bid and purchase.

The Italians did not appreciate this.

No wonder. It read as dissatisfaction and boredom in his career with them, it read as a betrayal of La Familia or whatever they liked to call themselves, it read as power-hungry: look, it just didn't read _well_. I mean, any half-wit could have told you that, could have told my dad that.

Alas, he didn't realize. He probably thought he'd been secretive enough in only telling a few people, even when one of those confidantes had been a member of the rival organized crime family, the Falcones. In retrospect, even _I_ can see what's coming here: I can see the clouds brewing up a storm, I can see the sharks looming in the depths below as they await that first droplet of blood. I can see with acute clarity my father for the fool he was.

In this case, that first droplet of blood came when a Maroni bodyguard, following on a tip, spotted my father out with Falcone's second-in-command nine days before my tenth birthday.

Maroni's men arrived at our house six days before my tenth birthday.

It was during the day, must have been close to 4 pm as I remember watching my mom prepare my daily snack of apple 'soldiers' and peanut butter when the doorbell rang. I remember my father wasn't home—I've since learned he was out dealing his homemade creations—and so when I heard a male voice, I remember hoping it to be him, that he'd come home early as a surprise.

This, was when life got shit.

I remember there were around four men in black: two came in with guns already drawn, one was sliding on a pair of knuckledusters, and the other just strolled in with a smile. There was a conversation, a short one, but I don't remember it. I just remember three taking my mom into the living room and the smiling one, a fat fuck of a sleaze bursting out his shirt, grabbing my chubby little arm and dragging me back to the kitchen, whereupon he spotted the sharp chef's knife glinting amongst browning apple core and grabbed it with such deliberate slowness I _knew_ he was doing it to taunt me.

I remember being pretty hysterical by then, screaming for my mom to come back as my arms flailed and lashed out at him before he harshly yanked them behind my back and threatened to slice my eyelids off and force-feed them to me if I so much as made another move or sound. I remember obeying him as he shut the door ever-so-gently behind him and the shrieks started. There's maybe a few more moments of bloodcurdling screams and gurgles I can remember before it gets difficult to breathe, before the edges of my vision blacken, before I topple to the cold linoleum kitchen floor.

I don't know when Maroni's men left, I don't know when they decided to leave my mother to bleed out, I don't know when the cops arrived because my next memory is that of being restrained on a gurney in a hospital I never got told the name of.

Turns out Dad wasn't going to be waiting for me back at home either: the Falcones had interrupted his little deal, beaten him within an inch of his life, then sold him out, leaving him a bloody mess for Gotham's Finest to find and apprehend. Three weeks before his trial date, he was found dead under suspicious circumstances in his solitary jail cell.

Life after that remained shit.

I became the poster girl for child-of-the-system: I was passed around foster families like an illicit drug, as it seemed like no one wanted to be found as the one keeping me. Most couldn't cope with my nightmares—who doesn't like a kid screaming from the hours of 11 pm to 5 am?—so it took a bit of time before someone finally wanted me.

Sophie was a thirty-four-year-old single woman, desperate to be a mom but a) single and, honestly, not ready to mingle, and b) a bit too overweight for the chance of fertilization. She had the same ash blonde hair my mom had and similar grey eyes, which made me like her almost instantly. She wore big sunglasses and almost never any makeup. She dressed in clothing that was far too big for her, regardless of weight, and always carried a Hershey bar in her bag in case of emergencies (see: falling off your scooter and grazing your knee, biting your lip whilst eating, not being first in line to ride the immobile airplane at Walmart, tearing up at the sudden thought that your parents were no longer in Gotham, on Earth, or able to answer your phone calls when you tried). She was kind, and loving, and patient, and devoted—and the greatest thing to happen to me after that bad day.

As the favorite poem of Ponyboy from The Outsiders goes, however, nothing gold can stay.

As I grew up, my repressed fears, anxieties, and characteristics all started seeping out at once, ever-present in my waking life, and, in an effort to stifle them once more, I somehow ended up involved in my high school's drug scene. I say that like I didn't seek it out—I totally did.

In the beginning, it was mostly downers: anything which made me sleepy or at least foggy enough so that I could make it through the day without crying, or feeling my skin crawl and stomach turn anytime the doorbell rang, or lashing out at someone, or lashing out at _myself_. As time progressed and downers lost their edge, I ended up throwing some uppers in there as well, y'know, mostly to shake things up, break up the monotony. I wanted to see what happened.

Well, three stints in Arkham's juvenile unit is what happened.

I mean, it was the Arkham _before_ that weirdo with the potato sack fetish ruled the roost, and it was the juvenile ward after all, so it was nowhere near as inhospitable and mad as the adult section is now. I was misdiagnosed twice—first with bipolar disorder, the second time with an antisocial personality disorder (...maybe they've never had a handle on that place)—but the third time, they got it right, I think.

I was diagnosed with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a bit obvious now that I repeat it again. How I was diagnosed with the other two, I don't really know, the doctors were probably still in med school and looking to impress whichever higher-up was on that day. Anyways, now I know that I should have gone for the uppers instead of the downers that dreary day when I was fourteen. Kidding.

By the time I was allowed to leave Arkham, I was eighteen and Sophie's heart had well and truly been broken. She'd visited mostly every day for the first stint, twice a week during the second, and as the third stint stretched on her weekly visits became biweekly, then monthly, then they just... stopped. I shouldn't have been surprised: she'd been bringing my belongings to the hospital in dribs and drabs and had stopped taking my dirty clothes home. When I left, I hadn't seen her in four months and seventeen days; I'd have been out sooner than that, but her abandonment set my progress back a bit.

I didn't return to her. I didn't want to hurt her again and, bluntly put, _I_ didn't want to get hurt again.

I applied for welfare and a job—strongly recommended by my therapist; surprisingly got both—and, after a few months of staying in hostels in and around the Narrows, finding my feet in both new adult life and _work_ , I was finally able to put down a small deposit to rent a tiny one-bed, one-bath, one kitchen-dining-living room apartment located on the other side of the Narrows in Downtown Gotham, on the corner of Jamaica Street and Scott Blvd. Blackgate Penitentiary and Gotham PD's Major Crimes Unit are no less than ten blocks away—the _real_ selling point, not its affordability.

Six years on, life is... getting better.

The Joker's been in Arkham for over a year now, Crane's... somewhere but not actively terrorizing Gotham, and the Batman disappeared into the dark as abrupt as he came into the light. They had another of those televised funerals for Harvey Dent, which was the first time I'd cried since, uh, the day the Joker induced mass hysteria as he called upon the city to murder the guy who thought he knew Batman. I tend to cry a lot. Anyways, after the funeral, there had been talk of law enforcement and politicians wanting to pass some sort of organized crime Act in Harvey's name, but us, the citizens, aren't frequently kept in their loop so I couldn't tell you if it was shelved or put on the schedule.

I'm still in the same place with a few minor changes. I have a second job—not only am I waiting tables in a diner during the day, I'm now tending bar near the Narrows Bridge until the early hours in some shitty, sketchy dive bar one of the diner patrons owns; I got my GED and driving license, though I still don't have a car (no parking space, no money); and I seem to have inherited the hobby of creating my own little weapons.

It's not as bad as it sounds. I'll explain:

One day, bored out of my mind from revising for the GED exam, I carried out my normal form of procrastination: going through everything I've ever owned and kept. Hidden amongst old drawings in what is definitely a metal toolbox but what I remember using as a lunchbox, I found four of my dad's old blueprints. One of some weird Swiss Army knife hybrid, the other of a pistol, and the remaining two of, well, bombs. I have no recollection whatsoever of ever stashing them away, and so I believe my dad must have known more than he let on—though I'm not sure whether he hid them away for himself to retrieve later, or for me. I try not to think about what either option might mean.

I didn't touch them for months, either. Any time even so much as my thoughts drifted near them, I'd feel huge pangs of guilt, like wasps thrumming my insides. I couldn't do that to my mother. She suffered in the most gruesome way imaginable for me to pick up where my dad left off? No, I couldn't do that to her. I didn't want to do that to her. I have never been able to forgive my dad for the situation he put us in, the danger he led us into, the suffering he put my mom through and the turmoil that came after it.

But I'm still his daughter.

And, months later, on one of my days off, I could barely feel the guilt for the temptation.

It's not like I've completely taken up my dad's line of work—I've not been looking for parts like he did, doing dodgy deals down some dark alley with a stranger, I've not been sourcing out other options or importing anything. I've only been making a few small things for _me_ and with materials I bought _legally_. And _nothing_ I do and _no-one_ I know actually warrant the use of a _bomb_ so it's fine. It's just sort of comforting to have some sort of protection with me that I know... personally.

...It's really not as bad as it sounds.

As of right now? It's 02:26 on a Friday and I've just finished my last shift of the week.

As luck would have it, I've managed to get all of Friday off in both jobs, and I don't start at the diner until 4 pm on Saturday. So, I've got a nice little break coming.

It's warm and raining lightly as I step outside Sugar's, the dive bar where I serve wannabe gangsters, suspicious beat cops, and young girls whose mothers ought to be scolded, though the pavement is still fairly dry. _The rain must have just started._ Habitually, I flip my hood up, zip my baby pink windbreaker all the way to my chin, and tuck my messy ponytail into my hood. I'm not much a fan of rain.

The streets are quiet, all the late-night customers are either still getting their money's worth or have slunk home, and I find the few blocks walk to the bus stop on Badger and Birch almost peaceful if it weren't for the rain.

I'm there with only three minutes to spare, or so the little television thing says, so I take that time to fork out the cash I need for a single ticket. Whatever possessed me to walk to the bar from the diner earlier has since left my body and I'm a bit _too_ excited by the prospect of having a seat on the bus.

In the silence, I hear the telltale signs of wheels on wet tar and a glance up the road confirms to me that I'll be getting to sit down sooner than I thought. The bus pulls over just ahead of the stop and I have to jump onto the platform to avoid stepping in the forming puddles. The driver—male, around mid-40s, balding, frowning—doesn't say anything as I ask for a single ticket to Jamaica Street, and I wonder briefly if he's even listening to me. Though, to be honest, he's probably heard so many variations of that question he could fill in the blanks in his sleep, so I don't mind.

The bus is empty except for two nurses sat together in the front row. I sit down in the third—not too close but also not too far—just as the bus takes off, and relief and exhaustion wash over me in tandem, my limbs suddenly heavy and head faintly throbbing. The bus' engine is humming a comforting lullaby and the bright overhead lights make my eyes burn, so I shut them. _I won't fall asleep._

Well, I do.

Only for a couple minutes, but even the thought of falling asleep on public transport is enough to jolt me awake, and I read on the little television thingy—seriously, what are those called?—that the next stop is Trillium Park on Rory Street.

 _Huh?_

I lean forward and, trying my best not to be creepy, I call out to the nurses ahead of me.

"Hey," my voice comes out deep and croaky (that's working in a bar for you) and I notice one of them stiffens. _Oh, come on. You saw me get on, I'm just a girl._

"Hey!" I try again, voice back to normal. The one in the aisle seat turns around finally and simply raises her eyebrows at me. I gesture to the tele...to the window. "Which bus is this? Are we not going to Jamaica Street?"

Both nurses have turned by now, both shaking their heads at me; if they'd been doing so in unison, I might have laughed.

"No, that's the 37. You're on the 31. This one's going all the way to Hilcroft before the river," the one in the aisle seat says. Her friend nods.

 _Shit_.

My eyes widen as I see the park coming up on our left and hastily press the red 'STOP' button on the handrail above me. Faintly, I hear the driver curse as he pulls in sharply to the right.

I run past the nurses, muttering a hurried 'Thank you!', followed by a meek 'Sorry! Thanks!' to the bus driver and I leap off the bus, onto the sidewalk below. Within seconds, the bus is out of sight and again I'm all by myself at a bus stop. The only positive is that the rain seems to have stopped.

There's no electronic system telling me if and when my bus will come, so I have to go old-fashioned and use the timetable and map. In addition, the light bulb at this stop has blown, so I resort to using my phone as some makeshift torch though it doesn't provide much help. I step closer to the board, phone held directly above my eyes, as I scan for the 37 on the timetable.

I find it just as I hear that familiar sound of wheels on wet tar, though it's much slower than the last time. Cautiously, I crane my neck to the right as I keep my body hidden behind the darkened glass panel and spot a black sedan about a block away, near one of the entrances of the park. The lights are off, though I can still hear the engine, and there appears to be only one man inside.

Am I about to witness a drug deal? Is he picking up a prostitute? Could he just really like driving at night?

I'm about to think up more possibilities when, suddenly, the grating shriek of tires burning rubber fills the atmosphere. Before I have a chance to duck completely out of sight, bright headlights bounce up and over the hill a few blocks behind the black sedan and what appears to be an old-fashioned ambula–

 _No. No way. What the–?_

I suck in a breath as I try to keep as hidden as I possibly can. Something in my gut is telling me I'm not meant to be here, that I'm not meant to witness this. The night's gone still and any warmth I'd felt is slowly dissipating as the scene unfolds, my heart now thundering in my chest, making it all that more difficult to hear.

The vehicle which has now shuddered to a stop beside the black sedan is none other than one of the ambulances used by Arkham Asylum. Trust me, _I'd know._

The sliding doors slam open and three average-sized men hop out, all decked out in what appears to be orderly uniforms. _Those have not changed one bit._ Two of the men stride over to the sedan, one sliding into the back and the other filling the passenger seat.

There's still one orderly waiting by the sliding door and I almost wonder why until I see another man jump down from the ambulance, his body turned my way.

My blood runs cold.

He's the tallest of the lot, with broad, hunching shoulders and long legs. He's dressed in one of those orange jumpsuits but there are no cuffs joining his wrists, no chains linked to his feet. From what I can see, his hair is long, past his ears, possibly at his shoulders, and looks black in the given light. His face comes up almost sickly pale, a stark contrast to his neck and exposed forearms, except for the shadowy areas surrounding his mouth.

My breath hitches.

Although I can't see them in this light, his eyes, I think, are staring straight back at me.

Now, I'm not one to jump to conclusions. I hate it when people do that with me and so I'm always insistent upon learning all the facts first before making any assumptions. But there's something awfully familiar to me about this man. I can't quite place it but the shudder rippling down my back is a clear indication that my body knows this man is _dangerous_.

I break my gaze to push myself back further into the bus stop. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he hasn't seen me, maybe none of them have. Maybe they'll just do what they were going to do and my bus will come and I'll get on it then I'll get home and into bed and I'll be safe.

I hold my breath for a moment because, now, both engines have switched on again.

However, there have been no more sounds of car doors closing.

I hear a splash and a loud _smack_ before,

"Hellooooo?"

 _That voice. Where have I heard it before?_

Another splash follows, then another, then silence again.

"Y'know, it's _rude_ to eavesdrop."

My knees buckle. That voice.

 _Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmyg-_

The Joker. It _has_ to be.

I, Ruby Carter, Gothamite nobody waiting for the bus home, have managed to intrude upon the Joker's breakout from Arkham. I, Ruby Carter, am now a dead woman.

I shut my eyes— _here come the tears!_ — and try to breathe. What the hell am I going to do?

I freeze as I hear what sounds like a frustrated groan followed by another _smack_. _What on Earth is that?_

"Y'know, _usually_ , people want to get this bit over with. Me? I'm _always_ up for a bit of foreplay."

It's the growl that punctuates the end of that sentence that decides my course of action for me.

I take off before I can even think of a plan, emerging fully from the bus stop for the first time that night and sprinting down Rory Street as if my life depended on it. Because it _does_.

All I can hear is the slide-and-slam of the ambulance door and the screech of tires behind me as both—well, I'm assuming both—vehicles chase after me. Before long, I realize that I am also screeching; I'm pretty sure that if I was in a cartoon, the panel would feature a long, continuous 'Nooooooo!' stretching out behind me.

I'm still running after eight blocks—okay, I ran a _little_ bit of track in high school, before the drugs—a feat I'm proud of until I realize I have fifteen more blocks until I reach Gotham's Major Crimes Unit, which, it seems, I've chosen as my first and only port of call.

I stop screaming for a minute to suck in more breaths. All my legs want is for me to be like _other people_ , just _get this bit over with_ , let him have his fun. And for a second my brain rationalizes these thoughts: if the Joker killed me, I'd a) be on the news for the first time in my life(!), b) go down in history as a victim of the infamous Joker, and c) I'd be his first victim back after his hiatus, so to speak. I'd be famous, if only for a little while. People would hear about me, maybe even begin to care about me and how my life ended so young and how it shouldn't have happened. People might even mourn me. I find myself slowing down.

Until three gunshots echo around me and I'm back sprinting as fast as I can.

I am _not_ dying by gunshot, in what would be known on the three o'clock Gotham News as a nameless drive-by. No way, _pal_.

As I pass the eighteen block marker—only five more—I become aware that the noise has died down. Maybe they realized where I was heading to. I want to check over my shoulder but another thought blocks that. It could be a trap: I look over my shoulder, I slow down, they pounce—or, rather, they shoot me from the window.

No, thanks.

I keep going, even though I'm becoming painfully aware of the nasty burning in my throat, sides, and feet. I let out a cry when my destination comes into view. There's a police car sat out front, two cops inside laughing and drinking from styrofoam cups, and I decide to start my screaming again, though my throat is begging for me not to.

Eventually, when I'm about two blocks away, they turn in my direction, eyes frantically searching for whoever is impersonating a tortured cat at this godforsaken hour.

"Please!" My shrieks have managed to pass as words now. "Please, oh my god!"

The two men hurry out of the car. The one nearest me runs my way and manages to catch me as I throw myself into him. His arms are strong, his chest firm but soft, and his breath is warm on my now exposed hair.

"What's going on? What's wrong?" The other one has appeared beside us.

If he's asking those questions, then I must have been right about the vehicles not following me anymore.

"I don't know, man, but she's crying and shaking like mad, we better get her inside."

The one holding me brings his hands to my shoulders and gently pushes me back to look into my eyes. All I can see is the concern in his. "You okay to come inside with us?"

I nod and attempt to step forward, only to slide as my leg refuses to work. Funny, it feels like my bones have evaporated.

He's quick to catch me and this time so is the other one. Each of them takes an arm and wraps it around their neck, their free hands supporting and guiding my waist.

Within seconds, we're inside and a fuzzy quiet has descended over the room. A vaguely familiar mustachioed man in a brown trenchcoat and glasses steps forward, eyes wide at the sight before him.

"What's happened? What's going on?"

The cop on my left speaks up.

"She was screaming and full-on sprinting down Rory, hyperventilating and–"

"I think she's in shock," the other one pipes up. I make a face at that. Oh, and the brown coat man notices because now, he's coming closer, a smile as gentle and earnest as ever on his face.

All at once, I want him to hug me.

"What happened? It's okay if you'd rather not say but you're safe here," he says and his voice is so _soft_. My eyes narrow and my head lolls to the side as I begin to see three of him. _Where do I know you from?_

I blink and try to wet my throat by swallowing a few times. I feel myself leaning forward and he's there, ready to catch me if I fall.

I want to say, 'please hold me,' but all I'm able to breathe out is,

"Joker."

* * *

A/N: Hello and thank you for reading this little thing I knocked together today whilst trying to break my writer's block!

This was written under the intention of starting another story. My other fic, 'Peel', is not on hiatus nor has it been abandoned; I just couldn't shake this idea from my mind and, well, it blossomed.

It's set a year or so after TDK. Ruby is an OC I've had in the bank for many, many years now, and only recently did I think to 'reboot' her and place her within the Nolanverse. So, we'll see where this goes.

Please let me know what you liked/disliked/IF you liked, haha. Reviews are very much the lifeblood.

Until next time!


	2. in the red

I want to say that I was able to regain my strength and the feeling in my legs after I uttered that toxic alias, that I pushed off the men supporting me and stood tall, chest puffed up and chin jutting out, brave, like an Amazon.

My brain had other ideas for me, however, like to pass out.

I come to God-knows how much later and find myself propped up in a desk chair, my windbreaker removed and draped over my shoulders and a scratchy, woolen blanket tucked across my lap. I'm still on the main office floor like before but now in a corner further back, away from the door. Somewhere a little more private.

My eyes land on a person crouching in front of me—a medic, if his blue shirt is anything to go by, with short brown hair and a five o'clock shadow—offering a full bottle of water with a blue-gloved hand. I blink; he just smiles awkwardly. Before taking it, I look past him and see–oh, it's _Commissioner Gordon_. _That's_ why I recognized him. He nods at me before stepping forward, whilst I accept the bottle and take a long, appreciative glug.

"How are you feeling?"

I swallow with a loud, unintentional 'ahhh' and twist the cap back on the bottle. The medic stands up, his knees popping with a loud crack, and moves so the Commissioner can come closer. I nod back at him, and a wince pulls at my lips. My head still feels a bit too heavy for my neck.

"I feel-"

I'm close to saying "alright" but then the memory of _what the hell just happened_ plays back in my head and my mouth shuts abruptly. I look down at the bottle in my lap.

He sighs—I don't think it's out of annoyance, but I can't be sure—and I sense him take another step closer. Another loud _crack_ and then he's crouching in front of me.

"Okay. How about the easier questions first? You feeling up to giving us your details?" He pauses, his tired, blue eyes catching mine. The urge to hug him hasn't abated, in fact, it's stronger now, and if I hadn't been as exhausted, I might have inched closer to him. From this distance, his trenchcoat looks soft.

It takes me a second longer to realize he's actually waiting for me to confirm. Hastily, I nod again, instantly regretting doing so as my brain jostles about inside my skull, and a small smile breaks the seriousness of his expression.

"Alright. Do you mind telling us your name?"

"Ruby, uh, Ruby Carter."

His eyes narrow the tiniest fraction and his smile falters for a moment before he's stretching out to full height and pulling over the nearest vacant desk chair. He reaches forward to the desk on my left, opens a drawer, and pulls out a yellow pad. From the inside of his coat, he retrieves a blue ballpoint pen, and soon, sitting hunched over, pad on his knee and pen scribbling down my name, he's ready to continue. He is the picture of undivided attention. The medic and other officers standing a few feet away remain still.

"Ruby Carter, you said?"

I nod, though I'm unsure why he's asking me to confirm.

"How old are you, Ruby?"

"24 going on 25."

"Okay, great." He sighs after finishing his last note and glances at his watch. "Alright, I'm conscious of the time and your, uh," he pauses for a moment to gesture at me with his pen, eyes lingering over my hands. I look down and realize that they're shaking, the water in the bottle gently sloshing back and forth. "Your current state. How about we press forward? Is there anything we can get you before we do so, though?"

"No, no. I'm good, don't worry about me."

His face softens and he scoots closer.

"It's part of my job to worry about you, Ruby." He smiles but it's fleeting, and then he's back to business again. "Okay, take me to just before the incident. Why were you out so late?"

All eyes are on me as Gordon passes the mic.

"I'd just finished up at the bar I work at and-"

"Where is that? Sorry, don't mean to interrupt, just trying to get the full picture," he says, pen at the ready.

"Uh, it's opposite one of the bridges to the Narrows. Sugar's?"

Gordon's eyebrows shoot up and a shocked silence descends as the other officers share a look. I can tell that most are only surprised—what's she doing in a place like that?—and there are some who are disgusted, no doubt because I willingly serve the lowlifes they swore to protect the public from, but there are a few who are suddenly still, tense, cold, and it's under their gaze, now so distant and harsh and reptilian, that I find myself squirming. The edge to their stares would be puzzling if I hadn't seen it before, but it's part of the same mask donned by every morally-grey cop when he orders his first round at Sugar's, flashing his gun—mistakenly, he assures—as he pulls out his wallet (" _this_ is what I was looking for!").

If only their colleagues knew.

Maybe I ought to let Gordon know that there might be a few bad apples rotting in his bowl.

Oh, right. Gordon.

He's clearing his throat, trying to dispel the silence, get my attention, who knows.

"Okay. So, you leave Sugar's at what time? And what followed?"

I inhale deeply before starting again.

"I locked up around 2.25ish, then headed to the bus stop on Badger and Birch. I got there before the bus arrived but–"

"Anyone else there?"

I shake my head. How many times is he going to interrupt?

"Nope, just me. I remember thinking that I'd made it just in time because the bus came over the hill pretty soon after I arrived. I got on and then halfway through the journey, I realized I was on the wrong bus," I pause to let him finish catching up on those notes before I continue. "You see, I got on the 31 thinking it was the 37, which, if you check the timetable, takes me right up to my apartment."

"And where is that?"

"On the corner of Jamaica and Scott."

He looks up then, something akin to a smile on his face.

"So, just a few blocks up the street." I nod. "Quite lucky to have the police on your front doorstep, especially tonight, huh?"

"Truthfully, that was the appeal. If I'd found a place as cheap closer to here, I'd have gone for that."

His eyes narrow fractionally before he returns his attention to the notepad.

"So, what happened once you'd realized your mistake?"

"I rushed off at Trillium Park on Rory. I figured there might be a bus there that would go up and across towards this area, 'cause if I'd stayed on the 31 I'd have been going all the way to Hilcroft." I chew my lip as I consider what I've just said. "Maybe I should've stayed on."

"What next?"

"The lightbulb was out at that bus stop, so I was using my phone as a light to read the map. Then a black sedan pulled up at the park entrance further up. It didn't have its lights on so I could see that there was only one guy inside," I say. My hands are still shaking. "I thought maybe he was meeting someone for, uh, something dodgy, y'know?"

Gordon nods, all too familiar with what I'm implying, as I stop to sip some water. My throat's beginning to dry up and I'd rather not start croaking. Once I'm satisfied my voice isn't going to break, I continue, "It'd only been there a minute or so before another vehicle came rushing over and down the hill. Pretty quickly, I could see it was one of the Arkham Asylum ambulances and-"

A shared scoff ripples amongst the officers, throwing me off. Some shake their heads, others are smirking, their faces all pictures of disbelief and mockery. Gordon doesn't seem surprised by their reaction, he's even sharing it. For the first time that night, I find myself disliking him. The narrowed stare he's set on me, the pursed smirking lips. He's just like every other officer now.

"And how exactly do you _know_ it was one of those ambulances?"

A flare of anger burns through my chest, and I _almost_ tell them that they're looking at an ex-patient, how's that for _funny_?

But I don't. Instead:

"I've seen them on the news?" My words are slow and rounded as I let them drip out my mouth like molasses, eyes wide as I stare at him in incredulity. I make a point of passing my gaze over each and every one of them before adding, "You mean to say, that with all the nutjobs getting their fifteen minutes on the news, you don't think the other citizens of this city noticed their favorite mode of transport?" There's silence. I let out a whistle and look back at Gordon, shaking my head. He's noticeably smaller now. "Bit insulting."

If they want to undermine my intelligence, I can play that game too.

Gordon clears his throat and reverts his eyes to his notes. Satisfaction splashes over me like a bucket of cold water, snuffing out the flames in my chest, soothing the burn. "It pulled up alongside the black sedan and three men in orderly uniforms got out. Two went into the smaller car, one waited outside the ambulance," I stop, waiting for Gordon to catch up before pressing on. I'm beginning to feel better than I was and, if truth be told, I don't want to be here much longer. Not after that.

"Then, someone else jumped out of the ambulance. Taller than the others, long hair, dressed differently. He was facing my direction and," I swallow hard, surprised by the sudden tendrils of fear slithering up my legs. "I think he saw me."

The Commissioner stops writing to glance up. I see his lips move to open, and, knowing what he's about to ask, I cut him off. "He spoke to me. Tried to cajole me out of hiding. _Any_ Gothamite would know that voice anywhere."

"Did you answer him?"

"No," I say, shaking my head. I take a few more sips from the bottle and then, it's empty. "That's when I started running."

Gordon holds up two fingers to me, signaling to stop, and he turns in his seat to look at one of his officers.

"Frederickson, radio out to on-duty officers and request investigation of Arkham Asylum. In the meantime, you phone the asylum, see if anyone answers. We've not received any alarm calls."

The blond officer nods and retreats out the room as Gordon shifts back to me. He nods, smiling briefly to signal I can start again.

"Not much else to say, really, other than that I definitely heard shots being fired on my way to here."

"Did you see where? Change your path at all?"

"No, I didn't stop. Didn't change either. Just kept on running." I sit up a bit, the empty plastic bottle scrunching in my lap between my hands. "I was too scared to stop. I didn't know what would happen if I'd turned around."

Gordon nods as he notes this down, even though I think it's something that pretty much goes without saying. If the Joker was chasing you, would you know what was coming next?

"Did he say anything else to yo-"

It's then that Frederickson comes scrambling back into the room, face white as a ghost and eyes as big as saucers as he narrowly avoids knocking a filing cabinet to the floor in his haste.

All eyes are on him as he sucks in deep breaths and holds out an unsteady arm, his hand threatening to let a cell phone slip out his grasp.

"There have been n-no alarm calls because the phone lines have been rerouted. I-It goes to a voice message. Recorded by the Joker."

I watch Gordon, not his alarmed coworkers, as his colleague delivers this news to the room.

Consternation bleeds from his pores and trickles into each and every crevice of his face, setting like cement into the deep frown and worry lines of his forehead. His gaze is sharp and panicked, and he hurries to face the fire exit before halting altogether. Realizing something.

The panic in his eyes sharpens as he turns in his chair back to me, his shoulders visibly slumped. For a moment, he's looking at me but not seeing me. The thousand-yard stare. He looks lost and defeated already.

"Sir, what do you want us to do?"

Frederickson must have sensed the impending catatonia because he's gently patting his boss' shoulder, the cell-phone hand by his side. The simple question and gesture shake Gordon out of his mental retreat, and he clears his throat as he stands, handing his notebook and pen to me in the process.

"Ruby, thank you for your time and for reporting this to us. If you'd leave your contact number on here, that would be great," he says, and I take the proffered items from him, quickly jotting down my mobile number in the space beside my name. I don't bring myself to read the entire page but before I place the book on his empty chair I see the words 'check background' underlined.

I don't have much time to dwell on that as the room is now ablaze with outraged and worried officers, and Gordon is standing in front of me, ignoring Frederickson.

"I understand you live only a few blocks away but I'd feel more content knowing one of my men had escorted you home safely," he murmurs.

I nod in agreement and, as I slip into my windbreaker, he helps to remove the heavy woolen blanket from my knees. Everything is done quickly. His gaze goes over my head as he pulls me up from the chair and he nods at someone out of my line of sight before looking back at me. The panic is still there, but lesser now, dampened down and forced to the back. Despite my change of heart before, I find myself worrying for him; it kind of breaks my heart to see him hide his true feelings so that his team can soldier on.

"Officer O'Doherty here is going to take you home, because, as you can see, I'm needed elsewhere."

Someone draws up to my right side silently but before I can turn to them and be pulled away, Gordon stops me with a heavy hand on my shoulder.

"For the foreseeable future, please try to differ your travel arrangements. And your work shifts if you can. The Joker fixes on patterns and manipulates them to his advantage. Due to his unpredictable nature, I can't rule out him trying to find out who you are."

The words are a bucket of ice to the exposed spine, a splash of scalding oil to the hand, a stab to the gut, and of course they are because the truth is unflinching and unforgiving even in the kindest of times.

And I consider them, even as he smiles sympathetically and squeezes my shoulder and turns away and strides out the room into another with his coworkers following hot on his heel. Even as my assigned officer, as tall and as dark and as broody as can be, tugs me out the room through to the entrance and I pass by a green-felt pinboard, scarcely used except for a wanted poster of the Batman and a business card from a local bakery. Even as I slide onto the passenger seat of an unmarked, brown coupe and watch as blaring police cars race past us up the road towards the bridges.

The truth lingers like the cold.

The car journey is silent and awkward, more so after I shake myself out of my mood and try to whip up some passing small talk. Officer O'Doherty wasn't into it. The ride is uncomfortable enough, that when I spot my apartment building coming up, I sit up like an excited pet does when their home comes into view.

"Anywhere here is fine," I offer to Officer O'Doherty like one offers a rope or a lifejacket to someone overboard. Anything to get him to stop and let me out and end this awkward little thing we have going on.

Unsurprisingly he doesn't answer but seems to accept all too happily since he pulls up to the curb rather sharply. The pavement is damp and, in puddles, the blinking red 'OPEN' sign of the 24-hour convenience corner store reflects and reads like the best 'Welcome Home' mat, a much-needed beacon emerging from the darkness of the night.

I look at Officer O'Doherty after relishing in the relief of our arrival and find him staring at me, his steel-grey eyes sharp and narrowed and his thin lips slightly ajar, which, to be quite honest, is unsettling enough to send a chill down my spine. He still hasn't said anything so I plaster on the best fake smile I can muster after this ordeal and nod at him.

"Thanks for dropping me off, I appreciate it."

My attempt at directing us to a place of conviviality doesn't work. Well, there's no discernible change in his manner telling me that it does.

"We'll be in touch," he says finally and presses the locking system button, before averting his attention to his left-wing mirror and dismissing me completely. I don't bother to convey my exasperation with a passive-aggressive sigh; instead, I unbuckle and get out, not sparing a glance back at him. I don't get much chance to because he's reversing back at such a speed I'm surprised he manages to keep the car on the right side of the road once he's pulled the U-turn.

I don't like him.

The bell above the convenience store door chimes in greeting like an excited pet when I enter. I make sure to smile at whoever's on the counter tonight—Sean, a relatively new addition—to thwart any worries of possible troublemaking given the hour, then make a beeline straight to the coffee machine before thinking better and opting for a medium-sized blue-raspberry and cherry slushie. My hand hovers over the donuts in the next aisle before dipping down and clutching a box of 3 plain glazed, my prize for the evening. An iced coffee collected from one of the fridges lining the back wall, and then I'm opposite Sean at the counter.

"Hey, Rubes, your sweet tooth kicking up again?"

You tell your name to the cashier once and suddenly you're on a nickname basis. My annoyance at the nickname ebbs when I look at his face. Call it exhaustion, but in this light (bright, fluorescent, aggravating) his smile is kinda… sweet. In spite of him using that stupid nickname.

I shrug with a little smile of my own, one I'd like to think looks coy but could very well come off as slightly deranged given how I feel at the minute.

"You could say that. I've had a _pretty_ rough night," I say as I reach into the inside of my jacket to retrieve my wallet whilst he rings up my loot. He snorts and shakes his head as he takes my cash, and after packaging up my stuff except for the slushie—"For the road, yeah?"—he offers me the pale brown plastic bag with a smirk.

"When do you not?"

I take the bag and the slushie, then, once the handles are around my wrist, I shoot a little finger gun at him.

"You got me there, Sean. You got me there."

His hair sticks to his oily forehead this time when his head shakes. And upon closer inspection, I can see a few pustules peeking out from the crevices of his nostrils and underneath his bottom lip.

"Well, here's hoping all that sugary goodness will perk you right back up."

Sugary goodness? Are we sixteen?

Oh, wait a minute. The acne and oily skin, the long shaggy hair. He might be.

With mild repulsion tainting my tastebuds, I decide to stop thinking about the fact that I almost flirted with a possible minor and, instead, take a long suck of my slushie and head to the door.

"See ya later, Rubes!"

I toss a wave over my shoulder.

"It's Ruby!"

Well, at least we both got something nice out of it.

A brief glance at my watch over the top of my slushie tells me it's now 3.47 am, and a brief glance over my surroundings tells me I'm alone on this street.

Good. I can fish out my keys without worrying.

Shuffling forward, I reach the door to my building and jab one of the keys into the lock, the door popping open stiffly, scraping the concrete louder than I'd hoped. I hurry inside, not because I'm scared of what could be outside, though that certainly plays a part tonight, but because of who I know is going to be inside.

And as if by black magic, I hear the faint unlocking of a door (five locks, to be precise) from up above. It's the only door on the first landing, located left of the banister: Mrs. Rano's. It always is.

Here we go.

I take the creaky, rotting-wooden stairs two at a time, determined to show I'm not intimidated by the 73-year-old bitch peeking at me from the 6-inch opening in her doorway even though I most definitely am.

She must realize it's me because suddenly she's yanking the door open completely and coming out to guard the landing, clutching her trusty aluminum baseball bat in her right hand. No matter who you are to her, that bat is never out of her sight or reach. Her grey robe is drawn tightly around her body much like her lips are drawn into it, and her bloodshot brown eyes sink into her skull and my soul as her brows furrow.

"And what time do you call this?"

Time for you to mind your own damn business, that's what time it is.

"Bedtime, Mrs. Rano. Bedtime for me _and_ you." I will myself to smile at her, close-lipped and dripping in sarcasm. Maybe I'm not too old for Sean after all. She sneers and the baseball bat raises ever so slightly. What a charming woman. Nevertheless, I power on and make it past her on the landing to round the side on the right and continue up the next few steps past another resident's door. It's a shame that the staircase design—open, wooden banisters, no walls in between—doesn't hide me from her until I'm almost directly above her.

"Who do you think you are?" She shouts at me from below. "Talking to me like that! Disturbing the peace at such an hour! Who on Earth do you think you are, little girl?"

I stop to look down at her over the banister, amused she's chosen not to realize the irony in her words, and suck loudly at the almost-finished slushie before shrugging a bit dramatically.

"Nobody, Mrs. Rano. I'm nobody."

She leaves me alone then, muttering something about me being a lost cause—probably true—as she retreats into her watchtower. Thank God she didn't push me any further. Given the night I've had I don't know how I'd have responded. I don't think bursting into tears would help me. In fact, I _know_ it would have made matters worse.

My apartment is on the right-hand side of the building on the top landing and is silent and stuffy when I get in. I can tell the mail has been shoved through my letterbox as if it's been balled up first because some of the junk mail and letters have ripped—how can you be bad at delivering mail?—and I'm disappointed to see that the dishes in the sink haven't cleaned themselves up.

My little place is just like any ordinary set-up. The front door opens straight into the heart of the apartment, an open-plan kitchen-living area. Taking up most of the room on the left is the 'living room': a soft, black 2-seater couch facing an old box TV I found at the Salvation Army a few blocks away, a worn coffee table hosting a set of three small cacti separating them. I'd found a nifty wooden bookcase at Goodwill, so that stands nestled in the left corner, though I don't have many books to adorn it with.

On the right wall, parallel to the couch, is a smallish square casement window that only opens 4 inches inwards and on the window sill, I have one of those miniature Batman-signal lights. A stupid impulse purchase after the Coleman Reese scandal, though it's an impulse buy I feel is too on the nose after tonight. Are you out there, Batman?

Anyhow, to the right of the room and right in front of me is my kitchenette. Five teal counters in an L-shape rotated 90 degrees to the right, a stainless steel sink in between counters four and five, a hob on counter two with the oven underneath, and a white refrigerator at the end. A few shelves above the sink and voila! That's it. No dining table, I know. But when you live alone, you tend to eat alone, and I'd much rather do that on my couch facing Friends on the TV than at a table facing an empty chair.

My bedroom is off to the right, just big enough to fit a 3/4 sized bed and chest of drawers, and through there, on the opposite side of the kitchenette wall, you'll find my little lilac-tiled ensuite with a bath maybe a tad too small for me.

But it works. It all works for me.

Thanks for coming on this house tour, please leave a review on TripAdvisor!

With a muted sigh and a bead of sweat, I flip on the overhead lights and scoop up my mail and head to the first of those awful teal counters. Putting my bag and mail down, I retrieve a coin from one of the drawers and put it into the air conditioning meter beside the front door. A few clunks, groans, and sputters from above the front door and then cool air filters into the room, one pathetic wheeze at a time.

Hey, it's the best I can do at the minute. It works for me.

I bolt the door, turn on the deadlock, and return to my loot of goodies. I'll deal with the mail and the dishes tomorrow morning. And I'll figure out the correct recycling bin for my slushie tomorrow.

But right now? I need sugar. And Joey Tribbiani.

Dumping my donuts and can of iced coffee on the coffee table, I turn on the TV. Like clockwork, the DVD inside whirrs and picks up where I left off as I dive onto the couch, readying myself to dive into the donuts next.

Ah, the One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant. A classic.

* * *

I wake up with a start when I realize that Joey Tribbiani isn't supposed to have scars and wear face paint. Nor is he supposed to don a bright purple suit, I think, or chase me around Times Square with a machine gun.

Yet here I was, dreaming that.

How _you_ doin'?

My iced coffee and donuts lie untouched on the table, the TV's switched itself off from inactivity, my teeth have been enveloped by some rank, filmy scum, I still have my windbreaker on, and a glance over my shoulder to the clock on the wall above my bedroom door tells me it's now about half-past eight.

Just over four hours of sleep.

I've not had nightmares featuring some form of the Joker for over a year. Time I took for granted.

What a start to my well-anticipated break.

I stretch and finally rid myself of the jacket. The air conditioner finished its cycle whilst I was sleeping and the apartment is at just the right temperature for bare arms. Next, I turn the TV back on but rush to eject the DVD before it can start back up again as I'm well and truly no longer in the mood for company, and instead opt for the one 24-hour news channel I get with my cable package.

Gotta check sometime if the rest of Gotham knows what I witnessed last night.

Oh, and they do.

The red 'Breaking News' banner is permanently stamped over the chest of the newscaster's body with 'Joker breaks out', a summary flashing in white across the bottom on a loop.

Said newscaster speaks through a rigid jaw. Her tone of voice is _almost_ detached, yet she can't fully disguise the panic punctuating her every word.

God, I wonder how Mike Engel's taking it.

I mute the TV but watch the loop. It seems there haven't been any further updates, my anonymous witness statement the only information being given at the moment.

And it's to this that I fall asleep again.

My phone is ringing from somewhere beside my head the next time I wake up.

Blindly—I refuse to open my eyes _just_ yet—my hand fumbles in the pockets of the jacket draped over the back of the couch to my right, and eventually, I find the persistent little pest. Naturally, I accept the call with my eyes shut.

"Hello?"

"Good morning, is that Ruby Carter?"

Okay, so it's not a spam call. Eyes open, I sit forward, leaning my elbows on my knees, willing myself to be Alert.

"You got me, who's this?"

There's a brief moment of silence before the man at the other end of the line clears his throat.

"It's Commissioner Gordon, Ruby." Oh, he sounds so...so...tired? Disappointed? Downcast? A mixture of all three? I can't place it but whatever he's feeling isn't giving me a good vibe.

"Oh, hi, Commissioner, how you doing?" I wince at my own phrasing. Joey Tribbiani strikes again.

"I'm...as good as I can be at this moment, Ruby. More importantly, how are _you_?"

I hum loudly as I glance around the room. I never actually checked the time before I answered the call and seeing bright sunlight beaming through my window has me both nervous (have I slept in too long and wasted the day?) and happy (a nice day for once! No rain!). I turn around and the arms on the clock are almost one at the ten to ten mark.

"Ruby?"

Oh, yeah.

"I'm okay, Commissioner," I answer automatically—it just comes out—and he's silent on the other end. He doesn't believe me. That's fine, I'm not sure I do either. "So, what's the news? Any leads? Have you found him?" He chuckles airily, emptily, and I can see that small smile on his face, the straying hairs of his mustache obscuring the image of fading-white teeth.

"You know I'm not at liberty to discuss any leads with you, Ruby." That's a no, then. He's still out there. "But I do have some news. I can confirm he's missing from Arkham Asylum, along with an ambulance. And we found the bullets you mentioned in your statement. Two were lodged into the concrete walls of one of the buildings you ran past, the other in the side of a recycling bin. Our forensics team is currently trying to recover any fingerprints."

So, it really did happen.

I was almost shot dead last night. By the Joker.

Suddenly the apartment is too hot again and this t-shirt is far too tight and is beginning to smell and-

"Did you hear me, Ruby? I said that your coming forward was incredibly brave and important. If you hadn't, who knows if we'd have found out about his breakout as soon as we did?" Gordon doesn't say 'the Joker's breakout', he says ' _his_ breakout'. I referred to him not as 'Joker', but as 'he'. He. _He_.

"I couldn't not. It wasn't something I thought through," I confess. It's true. I act before I think.

"Your instinct was the right one. Many people wouldn't have been able to run away from Him as you did. And those who would've? Certainly wouldn't have come forward-"

Yeah, okay, stop reminding me that I might have just put my foot in it.

"-so you did remarkably well in those circumstances."

There's more silence for a bit before he clears his throat again.

"Well, Ruby, that's all for now. We're still actively searching for Him, but at least we have _something_ in those bullets we found. Thanks to you," he sighs and I'm ready to put the phone down but then he starts again. Give people silence and they just have to fill it. "Ruby, for the time being, can I just reiterate my advice from last night? Don't take that way home again. Find a lift, call a taxi, get a bike—just, try to avoid that area for the time being. As unpredictable as He is, He's proven to latch onto people's routines and use them to His advantage. That also means wearing a different jacket. It's not much but if— _if_ —He wants to find you, it's best to avoid any kind of recognition. You understand?"

"Noted. Hey, any sign of the Batman yet?"

Commissioner Gordon audibly chokes, his coughs pulsing through my phone speakers. Okay, maybe not the smoothest segue on my part.

"No. And I wouldn't get your hopes up," he says _almost_ spitefully: he lacks the conviction, like an ex trying to convince you, and themselves, that they're better off without you. In this case, it's not a secret to either of us that he is most definitely _not_ better off without the Batman. "I'm sorry to cut this short but I have to get back to work. Again, if anything changes in your situation, you feel something's not right—call the station, okay? We're here to help. And I'll keep you updated when I can, too."

"Alright. Bye, Commissioner."

I click 'off' before he does, already chucking the mobile onto the cushion beside me, and stare at my little cacti behind my convenience store snacks.

Dread has sunk down heavily in my stomach and anchored me to the couch.

I know the Joker doesn't know me. I know that. I know he saw only the outline of me—a faceless person in a light-colored raincoat, running for the hills. But... But with him, you never can tell, you know? He managed to see me during the few seconds the Arkham ambulance lights shone on me. From a _block_ away. I mean...? I know he wouldn't be able to pick me out of a line-up but at the same time, _do_ I know this? Or am I just telling myself this to be able to get on with my life? To every Gothamite and their mother, he's an omnipotent being. A fly on everyone's wall. Who's to say he's not omniscient?

Don't move to Gotham.

Trust me, these thoughts are _not_ worth it.

It takes me another ten minutes or so until I decide I need to make something of the day. I only have the rest of today and some of tomorrow before I'm summoned into work and, at least for the sake of my sanity, it's probably best I don't spend this sacred time working myself into contortions over some fucking clown.

I mean, the Joker could get me at any time so I might as well just get on with it.

Right?

* * *

Gotham can be beautiful when it wants to be.

Take earlier this afternoon, for instance.

After fridging my goodies from last night, washing the dishes, showering, shaking myself out of another bout of paranoia, sorting through the mail—you know, general housekeeping—I decided today was going to be laundry day and forced myself out the apartment at 2 pm.

I got on the monorail heading over the Gotham River, to my tried and trusted laundromat on the edge of Midtown, and the sun, high and bright, just glittered over the water with not a cloud to obscure it—discounting the pollution, that is. As we headed into the concrete jungle, the sunlight bounced off the surrounding skyscrapers, bathing the carriage in a warm glow, and it was hard not to find myself serene for once, marveling at the surprising beauty this city can display.

And then a rustling drags your attention away from peace and towards the person opposite reading the paper with the headline, 'Clown's Reign of Torment to Return?'

The tranquility had been nice while it lasted.

Right now, I'd give anything to have that moment again, to saturate myself in that natural light over the unforgiving fluorescence I'm currently shielding my eyes from.

Suds City, a decades-long establishment, is my laundromat of choice.

Located in Red Hook in Midtown, its large and open-plan 24hr premises span over what could have been three shop lots.

Machines line the walls on the left and right, doubled up in all their chrome wonder, and in the center, two long rows of bright orange, plastic bench chairs sit back to back. There's a small self-serve café area to the left of the front door as you enter, a few vending machines by the wall, and a couple of well-used coffee machines, hot water dispensers, boxes of tea, and styrofoam cups on a long, white, plastic table. White linoleum floors and white tiled walls serve as perfect canvasses for glaring fluorescent lights to ricochet off. On the back wall, where the black baskets are stationed, thick, capital letters reading, ' _SUDS CITY_ ' are painted in candy-apple red.

Speakers are fixed in every top corner, out of which drift old crooner classics, along with CCTV cameras since there's no attendant. It's completely DIY.

It's perfect if you're not much of a people-person.

Most of the time.

Usually, I'm by myself when I visit (not many people choose to do their laundry after midnight) but today there are two elderly women near the machines on the left. Naturally, I choose a machine on the right and quickly get to work loading up two washes. Once I'm happy there will be no bleeding between clothes, I settle down on one of the hard seats and bring my book—Catch-22—out of one of my carry bags.

Up until I put my loads into dryers, the women hadn't been near me: after I'd started reading, they'd wandered off to the café area. But now a few hours later, after giving up on reading in this horrific light and fetching a cup of piping-hot watered-down tar, I'm settled on one of the plastic orange chairs watching my clothes spin up, and round, and down in the dryers, when I overhear the ladies discussing Gotham's hottest, or gravest, topic. A quick glance over my shoulder confirms they've drifted over to the seats behind me to fold their dried garments.

"Elaine, mark my words, Gotham will not last much longer if these lunatics keep wreaking havoc."

"Tell me about it, Christine. My boy Michael-"

"Oh, Michael! How is he these days? The bank still treating him well?"

"Absolutely. I think his car's worth more than I have in my savings account!"

I have to stop myself from groaning in disgust. Look, I understand wanting a better life, a more _comfortable_ life. And I know money can provide that. But if your son is expending on himself, on trivial status symbols no less, more money than you have to survive on? That's not self-preservation, it's obscenity.

"Oh, that's wonderful. You must be so proud."

You shouldn't be.

"You know I am. Anyway, Michael told me that last summer kicked off one of the longest falls in Gotham stocks and shares. A month ago, the economy was only just beginning to recover! So now, he says, we're headed for a crash, for sure. Time to sell any stocks you have, Christine, because they're not going to mean much for much longer."

"Well, thank God I don't have any of those. I don't know the first thing about how to go about them."

Is it just me or does Christine sound as bored as I feel?

It's then that my tumble dryers buzz their completion and I almost fall to the floor scrambling to get to them. I just want to get home now.

"Say, did you hear what they're saying about how He got out?"

Or maybe home can wait a minute. Who's They?

Given where I'm stood, I'm now facing them. Not looking at them—I'm trying to keep inconspicuous—but I can see them in all their gossiping glory, heads bowed with glinting eyes.

As I tug out warm garment after garment, one of them—I'm assuming Elaine—leans closer to the other as if to conspire, but doesn't lower her voice. She must like the idea of capturing an audience.

"His doctor," she speaks with finality, with pause, emphasizing the effect of her words and savoring the disgust and shock gradually spreading across her friend's features.

"You are _kidding_ me. How? What gives them reason to think she's part of it?"

Elaine's smirking now, shaking her head as she folds her last t-shirt—reminding me I should probably start with folding mine if I want to keep from being noticed.

"Rumor has it, her name was on the sign-in sheet way after working hours. No alarm went off either," she punctuates her sentence with a snort before adding, "the cops only found out when that poor junkie hanging about that park happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

My blood runs cold, and after stalling for a moment, I've decided I've heard enough and I begin to fold faster.

"No alarm? Oh, she _must_ have had something to do with it. Ugh, she was put there to analyze him—now look where it's got us!" This one—Christine—can't stop shaking her head. "Didn't I say it was a bad idea to give him a female doctor? Didn't I say that?" Elaine is mmhmm-ing away, smug that she's succeeded in inciting her friend. "And I don't get that story about the junkie either, how'd _they_ escape from the Joker? Doesn't make sense at all."

"Well, Michael says-"

Oh, great. Michael _says,_ so it must be true.

"-that they were probably on speed or coke, or something. Helped them to run." Elaine sighs and pats the top of her bundle as she waits for Christine to finish hers. "The Joker likes a show, though, so I think maybe he _paid_ them to tell the police, y'know, to cause a scare. Wouldn't be surprised if he caught up with them after and killed them off."

I know if I keep listening I'll have a panic attack. I'm already finding it a tad more difficult to breathe.

"Well, I sure hope God blesses them because they'll for sure need Him."

I turn my back to them as they pack their neat bundles into their bags and shuffle to the door. They're back to discussing the doctor now but I can't bring myself to listen. My heart is drumming a beat for only my ears.

My hands continue to shake as I shove my piles into my bags but once the door slams shut behind them, announcing their exit to the room, the pounding in my head begins to fade out, and soon the only thing I can hear is the monotonous buzzing of the overhead lights.

All I can think when I leave the laundromat is that I hope God blesses me too.

* * *

The queue for Illario's Pizza is the longest I've ever seen it, a 19-person-deep conga line winding its way down and looping around the dirtied white linoleum floor in front of the metal counters of the fryers. My stomach groans in protest at the thought of the waiting time but, still, I join the end of the line. Something's better than nothing, after all: from what I can remember of my fridge contents, I have only sugary snacks and yogurt.

When the line shifts forward, I finally step into the pizzeria and, almost as if my presence rings a bell, the owner turns suddenly and points at me.

"You are the last one! Shut the door behind you and turn the sign! No more!"

I'm taken aback by his frantic energy and the raised volume of his voice. I open my mouth to ask why but even that fractional movement was a movement out of place since his wild, wide eyes bore into me like a drill. After a second of gaining back my senses, I nod and do as I was told. I'm not taking him on, not in this state. It seems like everyone else received the message before I did, too, since it's only then that I realize the place is silent except for the shout of orders. Never in my life have I felt a pizzeria to be eerie, and yet this is exactly how it is.

The freneticism behind the counter doesn't stop with the owner; in fact, it extends to the rest of his team, powering every worker's actions. There's even a person moving down the line quickly, jotting orders down. Pizza after pizza is spat out of the wood-fired oven and boxed up with no frills, no pretenses. There's no eye contact. There's no 'have a good night'. There's no tipping—just hand over your money, take your pizza, and go. The whole process feels cheap and clandestine, reminding me of the bathroom drug deals I'd partake in during high school. The whole thing makes my stomach turn and now I'm not so sure I'm in the mood for pizza.

However, the presence of the order-taker prevents me from backing out.

"What do you want?"

No messing around here.

"Large Hawaiian, thin crust, extra cheese."

And, as quickly as he appeared, he's off, returning behind the counter and yelling each order to the other guys.

They're already turning off lights and cookers as I step up to pay.

"How come you're closing so early tonight?"

They all look at me like I've just declared I'm not going to pay. After a moment, the owner gestures to the switched-off television screen above him in the corner.

"Have you not seen the news? Girly, there's no chance in hell we're staying open in case that madman shows up."

I want to snort at that, because, I don't know, maybe it's me but I just can't see the Joker choosing to take a _pizzeria_ hostage as his first big crime back from hiatus, but I think better of it—they still have my pizza.

Instead, I nod, understandingly, sympathetically, apologetically—'Oh, I should have known, silly me,'—and exchange my cash for my order. I break the pattern and wish them a good night, which they return, less harried and much softer than their previous tones, and I take a minute outside the shop to reorder my way of carrying my laundry and food.

It's much darker when I reach the nearest monorail station, as if a parent had come in and switched off a forgotten light, and even though it's Friday night, Midtown is eerily quiet. There are people in my carriage when I step on, but given that the only stops from here on out are in Downtown, I'm led to believe the people who actually have a quality of life (i.e. non-Downtowners) are doing their best to preserve it. Good for them.

I'm grateful that there's a monorail stop just a few minutes' walk from my apartment, especially tonight as I lug around my laundry and food. A sweat has broken out along my temples and down my back and I smile as I consider this my workout for the day, a workout which includes pizza nonetheless. But as I pass my favorite convenience shop on my left and fumble for my keys, I happen to glance around and stop when I notice a nearby car parked on the other side of the road.

A brown coupe.

From where I'm stood and in this light, I don't _think_ I can see anyone in it. But I'm almost certain that it's Officer O'Doherty's. _Almost_. I _was_ reaching delirium as I rode home with him last night, and am currently running on fumes so it's highly likely my mind could be playing tricks on me.

Though, as I turn away from the car and open my front door, my rationale doesn't quite stop the hairs on the back of my neck from standing up. Nor when I glance up through the banisters to see if there's anyone outside my door.

A slight exhale leaves me when I see there's nobody there.

Mrs. Rano doesn't come out to harass me as I rush up the stairs as fast as I can with two full heavy laundry bags and a pizza, and even though I hear no movement coming from her place I keep up the fast pace as I pass by her flat. I'm tired, hungry, evidently feeling a bit out of sorts, and the thought of someone—especially her—interrupting my beeline for peace has me on the verge. Of what? I'm not sure yet but I'm not in the mood to find out.

I arrive at my apartment out of breath, more dew forming along my hairline and winding down my neck, and when the door swings away from me as soon as it's unlocked I thrust the bags through and dump them in the middle of the kitchen floor, cradling the pizza in one hand.

I take a moment to regulate my breathing before I find myself trudging on some unseen trajectory to my ensuite. I don't even stop to put my pizza down as I begin to run both bath taps.

It's only once I've cleared the gathered crud down the drain and settled on an appropriate temperature, pushing in the plug, that I set my pizza down beside the bath. Memory tells me I have approximately 1-2 minutes before my hot water dwindles into lukewarm piss so I'm quick to squirt my chosen bubble bath—white jasmine and mint, if you were wondering—into the flow. After a wave of my hand underwater, I'm up and out the ensuite and stripping off as quickly as I can.

Yes, I'm going to eat my pizza in the bath. No, I won't be taking any questions.

After undressing at breakneck speed, I unpack my laundry and set about returning the clean clothes into the right drawers, and finish by folding up the laundry bags and stacking them in one of my empty bottom drawers. Then I'm back in the ensuite and dipping my toes in.

It's only as I sink my body into the hot water and my teeth into my first slice, that I feel that similar sense of serenity from earlier this afternoon on the monorail. I don't allow any thoughts to enter my head, not that I have much choice in the matter as it seems I've entered into some stupor. Gradually, the heat from the bath soaks deep into my skin and bones and I find myself munching through the entire pizza on autopilot.

After all the noise of the last day, I'm happy for silence.

I unplug the bath as it starts to cool, wishing to preserve my newfound warmth, and change into a pair of cozy pajamas before rushing through my night routine, leaving the pizza box and my towel on the floor.

God, I can't wait to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, I wake to the faint sounds of a commotion that I already _know_ is coming from a certain elderly woman's front door.

Pulling a pillow over my head, I roll away from my bedroom door and onto my right side. Maybe she'll verbally eviscerate her latest victim and I'll be able to stay in my bed a bit longer.

My wishful thinking's no use, though. She's persistent and whoever's on the receiving end is clearly as stubborn as she is because it _keeps. on. going_.

Rolling out of bed, I grab my fleece robe off one of the hooks on the back of my bedroom door and shuffle out to the kitchen area, the commotion increasing in volume. I must be getting hotter. I slip into my sneakers by the door and put the deadlock on as I leave. Hopefully, this won't take long.

As I descend towards the ruckus, I peer over the banister and see the mailman, a stocky man who said goodbye to having hair years ago, being accosted by none other than Mrs. Rano.

"You need to learn the meaning of respect! Every day I get mail that's all crumpled up! That's no way to do your job!"

For the first time, we're actually in agreement about something. What kind of mailman can't deliver mail correctly?

"What's the need for balling it up? Are you that laz-"

"Look, lady, why don't you just shut yer mouth, huh?"

The look on Mrs. Rano's face tells me that he shouldn't have said that, but given that he's ever so slightly creeping forward, encroaching on her space, I feel that maybe she's met her match and that it's time I intervened.

I step onto her landing a bit louder than usual, alerting them both to my presence, and approach them cautiously as a child would towards a volatile parent.

"Everything alright?"

Both of them snort in unison and he shakes his head whilst she rolls her eyes at me and I can't help but feel like I'm now the enemy. From being at each other's throats to each other's sides. People are strange.

"Does it _sound_ like everything's alright, girl?"

Nice to know she's appreciative of my presence. She sighs and points a brass-painted talon at him. "He's sabotaging my letters. Can't be bothered to do his job properly, so he just doesn't do it all," she sneers. I notice that, as she speaks, the hand of his that I can see clenches into a fist, tightening with each syllable she spits in his direction.

The mailman looks between me and her, stepping back as he does, and offers a shrug which hits a wrong nerve with me. I step forward and cross my arms over my chest. He's not getting out of this that easily.

"Actually, I noticed some of my mail was shoved through my letterbox. One envelope's ripped," I remark. Silent, he stares at me. I would have said he was glaring but whatever emotion he's feeling doesn't quite reach to power his dull, brown eyes, as if the wiring inside his head has been cut. Offline. Unsettling.

After a moment I realize he's not going to speak at all. Must have only felt comfortable intimidating an elderly woman alone.

"How about you post our mail normally—straightened out, not crumpled—and we won't lodge a formal complaint, hmm?"

I keep his stare, even as he hands Mrs. Rano her mail—God, she must have been waiting for him—and shoves me mine as he pushes past me up the stairs. What a piece of shit.

Mrs. Rano looks triumphant until she sees that I'm still stood on her landing. The corners of her wrinkled mouth droop and her eyes narrow at me. I let out a nervous laugh and gesture over my shoulder.

"Hopefully, he'll not bother you or anyone else and we won't need to tape our electric bills back together anymore," I say, half in jest, and when she doesn't respond, when she doesn't even say, 'thank you', I nod at her and head on back up the stairs.

"Wait a minute, dear."

I pause and turn to acknowledge her. Maybe she _is_ going thank me. Maybe I was just too impatient. She's a prideful person, after all, swallowing it once in a while would take some adjusting to.

"Next time you think about spying on me—don't. You ought to learn to mind your own business and stop being so goddamn nosy. And get dressed—this isn't a hippie commune."

When I reach my apartment, I don't stop my door from slamming shut. In fact, I encourage it.

* * *

01.00 on the dot is when my feet meet the dry sidewalk on the corner of 2nd Avenue and North 11th Street, signaling the end of my grueling first shift back at the Cobble Hill Diner after my waste of a break. No wonder everyone fights me for my day shifts on weekends, the night crowds—unsupervised teenagers, date-night couples, families with too many kids—are not one bit appealing, even with the Joker loose. I'd take the 4 am start over them any day.

After the Mail Debacle on the stairs, I chilled in my apartment until I needed to leave for the diner—there's something cruel about how I was finally able to enjoy my break only when it was coming to an end—since it'd been raining pretty heavily all afternoon, ruling out my notion for a long, lazy walk around the neighboring shops. I only have one rainjacket, too, which, you guessed it, is the one I was wearing the other night. Not exactly something I _want_ to wear, thanks to the seed planted by Jim Gordon, and although I was able to avoid it most of the afternoon, by the time I was dressing for work, the rain was still going, so I had _no choice_ but to wear it. But, hey, it was pouring and it was approaching sunset so I strongly doubt anyone was paying attention to what I was wearing.

It's not pouring anymore, though.

The bus stop is just a few minutes' walk away from the diner and as I go to retrieve my purse from my pocket, my fingers graze over something cold and pointy.

Removing my hand, I find myself staring at the spare set of keys from Sugar's, the same set of keys I believed I'd returned to my boss' top drawer before leaving the other night.

I almost throw a small hissy fit right there and then, the urge to stomp my foot and burst into needless, frustrated tears rushing over me like an inescapable bout of nausea but I think better of it. Jim Gordon was right. I shouldn't have worn this jacket. I should've just allowed myself to get soaked.

Instead, I decide to call Sugar's. It's still open for another hour and although I really, _really_ don't want to go by tonight, I know if I want to keep in my boss' good books I should at least offer to swing by just now. I have the keys to his bar, after all.

It rings, and rings, and rings, and continues to ring out for thirty seconds before I hang up.

Weird.

As I said, they're _meant_ to be open. Usually when the phone rings, Oz, my boss, is the first one to pick up, but not even the other staff members are answering.

I try one more time before I pocket the phone, retrieve my purse, and hightail it to the bus stop. Tonight I'll be catching the 37—you know, the bus I meant to catch the other night.

It's sat there waiting, the bus driver seemingly inconvenienced by the strict time he's allotted to spend at each stop.

When I hop on I find it almost full—not even the Joker can stop Saturday night fever in Downtown—and end up sitting in one of the empty seats at the front. Once comfortable, I ring the bar again just in case Oz was on a bathroom break or the music was too loud the times before.

It rings out.

I try again and, as expected, nothing. No answer.

Am I forgetting something? Is today a special holiday or occasion? Did _everyone_ get a day off from the bar and not just me? Why am I nervous?

Note to self: buy some Pepto-Bismol tomorrow. It's been a rough few days for my stomach.

My idle wondering comes to a sharp halt along with the bus, which has now in fact arrived at my stop. I catch the driver's eyes in the mirror and the look of pure contempt he sends me has me leaping to safety on the sidewalk as if I'm being pushed off the bus with a hot poker. There must be a tick box requiring 'SADIST' as essential on the person spec to become a bus driver. Here's a question: what came first—the bus driver or misanthropy?

At the bottom of Hickory Street, on the corner opposite one of the bridges to the Narrows, hidden away in all its red brick glory lies Sugar's.

Only those who know of the place stop by, making it an ideal establishment for those not wanting to be seen. Given that, and my past, you'd think I'd avoid a place like this at all costs, let alone work there. But Oz has this way, you know? He can look at you with his round, brown eyes and suddenly you sense that, to him, you're the most important person he's going to meet that day and that you're already invaluable to him. If you can look past his hook nose, that is. I did and look where I am now.

The dive bar spans two floors: ground or, rather, the _basement_ —accessed by stairs at the front on Hickory and the back on Holly Street (the usual staff entrance)—and first floor, accessed by stairs only at the front. The sign looks exactly like the sign you'd imagine for a bar called Sugar's: italicized, fancy, sweeping font, large, and neon—hot pink though, not red. Oz had opened the bar in the hopes of it being a gentlemen's club, hence the name, but realized pretty soon that the location wouldn't generate the revenue he desired from that. No lady dancing onstage wants to be catcalled or pawed at by lowlifes, but at least the rich ones pay well.

Movement catches my eye as I find myself stopping in front of the large bay window, cowering slightly. As usual, it's steamed up, droplets of condensation racing against one another to the windowsill, and the dark wooden blinds are down, though there's a slight gap and I can _just_ about see someone slowly walking down the hall at the back. Other than that, the front—the actual bar—is dark. And the bouncers aren't here.

I don't like this.

And I don't know if it's leftover paranoia from two nights ago or what, but my stomach's bubbling again and I'm breathing a bit faster. _Something's not right._

I go around the back to the staff entrance and am somewhat relieved by the sight of Oz's black coupe parked in its usual spot. I'm not fully relieved, though, because there are two cars parked on either side of it, a black sedan and a black SUV.

No-one drives to the bar.

Given that the outside lights are on at the bottom of the concrete steps, I believe that Oz _is_ here—he's just not alone.

Which, again, doesn't sit well with me.

This feels like the point where I should turn around, walk back to the bus stop, go home, and return the keys at another time. My ears are starting to ring and I'm getting déjà vu, but I can't quite place where I've felt all this before.

Now, I'm not exactly worried about Oz.

Sure, he's 5'3" but that man knows how to handle himself. There was a bar brawl once and it was almost as if he'd been waiting for that moment his entire life. I've never seen someone so scrappy in a fight, never seen someone relish the bloodshed quite like he did. Truth be told, it didn't scare me as much as it impressed me. I found myself respecting him a whole lot more after that; everyone in the bar did.

The thing that's concerning me about tonight is that my image of him as a somewhat decent man might be tarnished as I have no idea what I'm walking in on.

He's never discussed drugs or gambling or anything illegal, so to speak, but the whole gentlemen's club thing, the bar brawl... Pieces of a puzzle that make me think he wouldn't be averse to another source of income kept off the record.

And the only reason I find myself walking towards the door is that, well... If he _were_ of the type to engage in illicit business, would _you_ keep something of his that you weren't meant to have?

I didn't think so.

The white fire door pops open towards me when I slot in the key and turn the handle; no creaking, thanks to my treatment of it with WD-40 the other day. It shuts easily and quietly, too, and suddenly I'm in. No turning back now.

The red hallway—not maroon, not scarlet, not crimson, it can be described only as truly _red_ —is empty and quiet except for the faint buzz of the overhead neon red lights—yeah, Oz _really_ wanted a gentlemen's club. The visual of it never fails to set me on edge. I'm sure men probably find it 'cool' and 'ambient' but for a small-ish young woman, I feel like prey wandering down the paths of Hell, unaware of the dangers that loom behind the doors I tread past.

Given the build-up this has had, this feeling is cranked up and I reckon my heart rate is inching closer to the record number it set the other night. I almost laugh at myself. I mean, for all I know, this paranoia could be for nothing.

Oz's office is ahead of me, the third last door on the left. Further past that and you've got the two maintenance closets: a broom closet with all our cleaning materials and a supply closet for restocking the bar, the toilets, and what have you. The other fire door at the end of the hall opposite the one I've just come through opens into a large private room, and, to the left of that, there's a stairwell leading up to the main bar. There are other doors in this hallway but I couldn't tell you what lies beyond them, I've never been through them. I don't have those privileges yet.

There's light coming from under only Oz's door and if I strain I can hear low murmuring. Well, at least I was right about him being here.

I don't know why—maybe it's the psychological impact this hallway's having, maybe it's just my psychological state in general—but I find myself moving in slow motion, not wanting to make any noise, my feet creeping ever so slowly down towards my boss' office as I restrain my breath and clutch the spare set of keys as tightly as I can to prevent them from jingling.

This doesn't last long though.

You see, when I'm nervous, paranoid, whatever you want to call it, I sweat. And my palms? Tonight, they're slicker than the grease that coats the empty plates at the diner.

Before I can even sense it happening, before I can even try to catch them, the set of keys slide out my grasp and clatter to the floor with a clang so loud and so jarring, I can't help but flinch and groan with increasing alarm, "No! No, no, no, _no_!"

I'm a door away from Oz's office and as I scramble to pick up the keys, I become startlingly aware that the murmuring in the office has ceased. _Shitshitshitshit-_

The office door wrenches open and I still haven't been able to get a good grasp on the fucking keys when someone who is definitely _not_ Oz booms, "And who the fuck are you?"

I finally snatch up the keys and find myself eye to-

Machine gun.

 _Jesusfuckingchrist_.

The keys drop to the floor again.

"I said, who the fuck are you?"

He storms forward and presses the gun to my chest with such force I wonder if I'll live to see the bruise it causes, and if this imposing wall of a man can feel the thudding of my heartbeat travel through the gun.

Oh, I'm going to die. Though I can't tell if the culprit will be my heart or the machine gun.

"I-I'm Ruby," is all I can squeak out. Another sharp prod with the gun and I'm yelping, "Ruby! I work here! Oz is my boss!"

From down the hall, I hear the familiar sound of Oz's heavy leather chair scraping against the floor. A moment later and he's peering down the hallway at me, an unpleasant combination of confusion, shock, disappointment, and anger contorting his hard features. In this light, he looks truly _ugly_ , not a single soft or nice thing about him. Those eyes that made me feel so safe the time he hired me on the spot in the diner, they're long gone. His patience along with them.

"Ruby, what the hell are you doing here?"

I don't know if it's because he sounds so _normal_ while an ogre of a stranger points a goddamn _machine gun_ at one of his employees or because said-monster jabs me with the weapon again impatiently, demanding I _answer_ , but some _thing_ in this exchange makes me snap and I find myself whipping my attention back to the beast in front of me.

"Look, _pal_ , I was _just_ about to answer him, you don't need to poke me with that thing agai-"

"Ruby!"

Another note to self: in order to avoid being backhanded by a man with a club for a left hand, _don't_ talk back or snap at him. The satisfaction of uttering such a retort dissipates pretty damn quickly to make room for the searing pain such a blow causes.

And, now? I'm on the floor beside the keys, my left temple and cheekbone are throbbing and _dripping_ —it figures he'd be the type to wear a signet ring—and someone in the office is giggling. The unfolding situation kicks Oz into gear and he's coming forward to help me up, pocketing the keys with nonchalance as he does so.

"Jesus Christ, Rambo, put that thing down before anyone else gets hurt. Ruby couldn't harm a fly, much less you," Oz says. _I_ _ncorrectly_ , I think, even as he pulls me up and takes me by the shoulders. He's smaller than me by three inches but I can't help but feel looked down upon by him. As if I'm just some naive little girl. That feeling, and the memory that there's a man with a machine gun two feet away, makes me jerk back, shrugging off my boss' hands as if they were filthy. In many ways, they are.

Wait, did he just call him _Rambo_?

"It doesn't look like you'll need any stitches, but the cut's a nasty one-"

 _No shit._

"-Come over here a minute and I'll get you cleaned up."

I don't move, eyes locked onto the brute who just tried to knock my head clean off. Oz heeds my unspoken message and turns to him, jerking his head to the office. _Rambo_ seems to understand and ambles back, baiting me with his slow, arrogant gait. Before he ducks into the office, he turns to me and offers one of the slimiest smirks I've ever seen, so slimy I'm surprised his lips haven't slipped right off his face and sputtered for breath on the floor like a flopping fish. A shudder ripples through me at the intense feeling of déjà vu, though this time I can place it: I'm six days away from turning ten years old, alone in my kitchen except for a browning apple core, trying to tune out the screams of my dying mother.

The memory, one which hasn't been conjured in _years_ , hits me with as much force as Rambo did, perhaps even more, and I almost vomit right there on the spot, tears welling in my eyes.

Oz notices the change in my demeanor and whatever else he sees in my face makes him inspect me all over again, gently tugging me towards the door of the office but not inside. "Stay," he orders, and I obey. I'm too busy focusing on ridding my mind of my past.

I hear a desk drawer open and shut, and he's back in front of me tilting my chin to the right, away from the office. Whatever he's trying to hide in there has lucked out with my injury being on the left side of my face.

"What are you doing here, Ruby?" He asks again quietly, just to me this time, as he dabs at my wound. He's no longer angry and I recognize his tone for the one he uses solely with me. It's the tone that made me accept his job offer.

I gesture lamely to his pocket, wincing as the skin around my eye stings. When I open my eyes after the sting's subsided, big fat tears escape and rush down to hide in the nooks of my nostrils, embarrassed like the rest of me.

"Found the spare set of, _shit,_ of keys in my jacket pocket. Thought I'd returned them the other night." I keep my eyes away from him as they threaten to water again. "Evidently not."

He sighs and, after a few more dabs, he holds the wipe to my wound and presses down firmly, squeezing a gasp from me. I look down the side of my nose at him as I begin to consider what I've managed to interrupt. "I tried calling you, y'know," I divulge, eager to see his reaction much like when you try to catch someone in a lie, before adding bitterly, " _umpteen_ times."

There's a low whistle from the office, then a loud ' _tsk, tsk, tsk_ ', and I try to see just _who_ is piping up now, but Oz's grip on my chin tightens and holds me in place. A faint shake of his head, 'no', and I relinquish. Still not my business, got it. His jaw sets as he swivels his gaze to meet mine, contemplating what I'd said, before returning to my wound. He's gentle this time when he dabs and presses.

"Sorry, Ruby. I've been in a business meeting tonight." There's a snort from the office and he hastens to add, "I still am."

He pockets the bloody wipe and brings out a large, long band-aid, peels off the backing, and gingerly places it over my wound, ensuring my hair is out of the way before smoothing down the sticky sides. "There," he says, his face much softer now as he offers me a small smile, one I can't return because my emotions are still in overdrive and _how on Earth can he be smiling right now?_

He smooths back my hair, his hand lingering where my earlobe meets my jaw, like he's cradling my throbbing head, and fixes me with an inscrutable stare. "Any more questions?"

I don't remember actually asking any, but I guess that's what I get for trying to play smart with Oz—he always seems to know _exactly_ what's going on—and although I have several questions swirling around in my head, I get the impression he's warning me of asking them—not inviting me to. And so I keep quiet. Well, I try to. Before I can clamp down on my tongue for good, I hear myself blurt out,

"Is his name really Rambo?"

There's silence until a harsh guffaw bursts out—from the tan leather chair facing away from the office door, _not_ Oz—and then Oz is pushing me out of the doorway as he steps back in, a tight, polite smile on his face belying his rushed motions.

"See you tomorrow, Ruby," he says, though I take it as more of an instruction to leave than a farewell.

I nod and take another step back just in time for the door to slam shut in my face, leaving me alone in the red.

* * *

A/N: Please accept this 10k+ chapter as my apology for the delay in updating. I hope it was worth the wait!

I won't lie, I struggled for months in even _attempting_ to start this chapter. Whenever I started writing, it just didn't feel right no matter where I thought to take it. I had shelved it until late June last year when ideas finally started to trickle in; by late July I was writing snippets here and there. Two more dry months, then October hit. I reread chapter 1, and hey, presto, I was back in business and writing every week.

In better news, I've started writing chapter three already.

Also, do you have any ideas about Oz? ;)

I'd love to know what you think, either in a review or a message! The next chapter is when things really start to kick off.

P.S. for those who have read _Peel_ too, expect a chapter in the next few months (hopefully weeks, but no promises). Been working on that too.

Until next time,

Xo


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